Inspector Morse: Death Is Now My Neighbour

I really liked this episode -- great ending for Morse personally and professionally, complete with a satisfying comeuppance to the reckless and ruthless and utterly creepy Clixby Bream.

But Clixby was right about one thing; Shelly Cornford certainly was naive.

I can somewhat see how he tricks her into not telling her husband the first time he propositions her.  She's in an alien environment, after all, and might quite innocently believe Clixby's representations about how things would go awry if she told Denis.

When we come to the second episode, however, Clixby's winning argument is that Denis would never forgive her if he lost the Mastership because she was unwilling to whore herself out for him.  If that were true, surely she would lose nothing by running it by Denis first.  (After all, the argument is premised on Denis eventually finding out that she didn't have sex with Clixby and being permanently angry and resentful about it.)  So when she sends Clixby to the other room, surely all she has to do is call Denis and say, "Hey, sweetie, Bream is telling me he'll make sure you get the Mastership if I have sex with him.  And he told me you'd never forgive me if I didn't -- is that true?"

Weapons Screening at Meduseld: Wizards, Dwarves, and Men

The companions are warned right at the gate of Edoras that all weapons must be left at the threshold of Meduseld. Basically everyone but Legolas ignores the TSA instructions and acts totally surprised that "no weapons" actually refers to him. Here's the highlights reel:

Gate-guard: Théoden gives you leave to enter; but any weapon that you bear, be it only a staff, you must leave on the threshold. The doorwardens will keep them. (509)

Háma: Here I must bid you lay aside your weapons before you enter. (510)

Legolas (handing over his knife, quiver, and bow): Keep these well, for they come from the Golden Wood and the Lady of Lothlórien gave them to me.

Háma: No man will touch them, I promise you.

Gandalf (after Aragorn and Gimli balk): Here at least is my sword, goodman Háma. Keep it well. Glamdring it is called, for the Elves made it long ago. (511)

Aragorn (reluctantly, at Gandalf's bidding): Here I set it, but I command you not to touch it, nor to permit any other to lay hand on it. In this Elvish sheath dwells the Blade that was Broken and has been made again. Telchar first wrought it in the deeps of time. Death shall come to any man that draws Elendil's sword save Elendil's heir.

Háma: It shall be, lord, as you command.

Gimli: Well, if it has Andúril to keep it company, my axe may stay here too, without shame.

Háma (to Gandalf): Your staff. Forgive me, but that too must be left at the doors.

Gandalf: Foolishness! Prudence is one thing, but discourtesy is another. I am old. If I may not lean on my stick as I go, then I will sit out here, until it pleases Théoden to hobble out himself to speak with me.

===

I. WIZARD

One thing I hadn't remembered noticing before -- and have highlighted above -- is that the gate-guard specifically states that staffs are prohibited weapons. So Gandalf's feigned surprise and indignation is quite an act. (And both Háma and Aragorn surely see through his protestations, despite Aragorn's concurring characterization of the staff as an old man's support.)

II. DWARF

What I noticed here flows from the characterization of each weapon:

1. Legolas mentions only the origin of his weapons (not their names or lineage), and asks Háma merely to keep them well. This is sufficient, as Háma is clearly afraid of handling weapons from Faërie and volunteers that they will remain untouched.
2. Gandalf provides name and origin of his sword, and likewise asks Háma to keep it well (no special request and no reaction from Háma).
3. Aragorn provides name, lineage, and history of Andúril and commands that no one touch it, and Háma, clearly awed, indicates the command will be obeyed.
4. Gimli does not provide a name or lineage for his axe, nor does he require it to be untouched once he leaves it. We might infer from this it's an ordinary axe, and that only dwarvish pride spurs him to follow Aragorn's lead: He's sure as heck not going to comply, if Aragorn is exempt! 
   This strikingly echoes the situation at Lothlórien, where Gimli wasn't going to be the only one blindfolded! (Tellingly, he first relents on condition that Legolas would be blindfolded too, and -- just as tellingly -- the Elf balks at this until the whole Company ultimately agrees to the condition.)

III. MAN

For this, I was struck by Aragorn saying "Death shall come to any man that draws Elendil's sword save Elendil's heir."

He makes it sound like a curse that lies on the sword (think Túrin). But is Andúril indeed cursed? Who exactly would have cursed it, and when? Surely not Aragorn -- I don't think he has the power.
Is he threatening to kill anyone who draws the sword? Seems unlikely; how would he do it, weaponless? And how would he know if someone drew the sword?

One potentially significant fact is that Aragorn doesn't provide a timeframe as to when death will come to a man (other than him) who draws Elendil's sword. So quite possibly Aragorn is saying something perfectly true -- since death shall come to all men -- and making it sound like a curse by suggesting that he himself is exempt. And in a sense Aragorn is exempt, because it is given to him to choose the time of his death. That is, death technically does not come to him; rather, he goes to death, when his work is done and the time is right.

A Few Stories About the Rohirrim

Uglúk's lore:

• they "have better night-eyes than most Men" (454)
• STATUS: This may or may not be true; riders miss the hobbits at night (457) but are described as "keen-eyed" when they hunt down the remaining orcs  after dawn (459)
• "their horses [...] can see the night-breeze" (454)
• STATUS: confirmed, in Tolkien's typically ambivalent way: "Whether because of some special keenness of sight, or because of some other sense, the horse lifted and sprang lightly over them; but its rider did not see them" (457)

Isengarders' taunts to the Northern orcs:

• they "will catch you and eat you" (452)
• STATUS: hahaha! or more likely, leave your stinking orc corpses on the road unburied -- except where the corpses are numerous enough to burn in a big heap (440)

Aragorn's explanation of what he, Gimli and Legolas have observed:

• "they do not heed the wrath of Fangorn, for they come here seldom, and they do not go under the trees" (441)

Story that they pay tribute to Sauron/Mordor:

• At the Council of Elrond, Gandalf reports Gwaihir's words: "They pay a tribute of horses [...] and send many yearly to Mordor, or so it is said; but they are not yet under the yoke" (262).  Aragorn is very surprised and deeply grieved to hear this; Boromir is certain it is "a lie that comes from the Enemy" (id.)
• On the brink of actually meeting them, Gimli reminds Legolas and Aragorn that "Gandalf spoke of a rumor that they pay tribute to Mordor" (431).  Aragorn now says he believes it "no more than did Boromir" (431), although he remains uncertain about their loyalties (262, 430, 433). 
• STATUS: When Gimli asks about it, Éomer angrily refutes it (436).

Saruman and the Boggart: A Slight Point of Connection

Just noticed a tiny point of connection between Saruman and Rowling's boggarts. It is a point merely implied by Gandalf's words, and not fully developed in Tolkien; but coincidentally brought to fruition in one of Harry Potter's Defense Against the Dark Arts classes. (I am not in any way suggesting that Rowling had it in mind.)

For simplicity, I'm reporting the dialogue as if it were a script.

Gimli: I will come. I wish to see him and learn if he really looks like you.

Gandalf: And how will you learn that, Master Dwarf? Saruman could look like me in your eyes, if it suited his purpose. And are you yet wise enough to detect all his counterfeits? Well, we shall see, perhaps. He may be shy of showing himself before many different eyes together. [...]

(Tolkien, LotR, III.10 at 576-77).

Hermione: [A boggart is] a shape-shifter. It can take the shape of whatever it thinks will frighten us most.

Lupin: [...] So the boggart sitting in the darkness within [the wardrobe] has not yet assumed a form. He does not yet know what will frighten the person on the other side of the door. [...]This means that we have a huge advantage over the boggart before we begin. Have you spotted it, Harry?

Harry: Er — because there are so many of us, it won’t know what shape it should be?

Lupin: Precisely. It’s always best to have company when you’re dealing with a boggart. He becomes confused. Which should he become, a headless corpse or a flesh-eating slug? I once saw a boggart make that very mistake — tried to frighten two people at once and turned himself into half a slug. Not remotely frightening.

(Rowling, HP and the Prisoner of Azkaban, ch. 7 at 133-34).

However, in the event, Saruman is not shy appearing before many different eyes - he appears as "an old man, swathed in a great cloak, the colour of which was not easy to tell, for it changed if they moved their eyes or if he stirred. His face was long, with a high forehead, he had deep darkling eyes, hard to fathom, though the look they now bore was grave and benevolent, and a little weary" (LotR, III.10 at 578). It is his voice that ultimately holds the peril. And when Gandalf's voice proves stronger, forcing Saruman to turn back when he would leave them, even this last chosen mask fails; "[h]is face was lined and shrunken" as he comes slowly back to the iron rail (id. at 583).

And Rowling's boggart cycles through many forms, each dismissed in turn with laughter by the targeted student, going faster and faster -- "Crack! The banshee turned into a rat, which chased its tail in a circle, then — crack! — became a rattlesnake, which slithered and writhed before — crack! — becoming a single, bloody eyeball" -- until it is thoroughly confused and finally banished by the group's laughter (PoA, ch 7 at 138).

And this brings us on to a second, perhaps more significant, point of connection.  Because, of course, the power of Saruman's voice is likewise finally shattered by laughter.  In a final gambit, Saruman has turned his full attention and persuasiveness to Gandalf.  The onlookers recognize these two wizards are "[o]f loftier mould [...]: reverend and wise.  It was inevitable that they should make alliance" (LotR, III.10 at 582).  Even Théoden fears betrayal.  And yet --

Then Gandalf laughed.  The fantasy vanished like a puff of smoke.

(id.).

Works Consulted

Rowling, J. K.  Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.  Scholastic Inc., 2001.

Tolkien, J. R. R.  The Lord of the Rings.  50th Anniversary One-Volume Edition, HarperCollinsPublishers, 2005.

The Transformative Power of 'S'

It makes needles needless, and turns laughter to slaughter.

That Hideous Strength: Lewis Boosts His Friends

I (ahem) still haven't gotten around to discussing C. S. Lewis's references to "Numinor" in any detail.

But I think it's important to note that he wasn't only cross-promoting Tolkien in That Hideous Strength -- he was also cross-promoting Williams:

   "I  wish you'd read the poem I'm reading," said Camilla. "For it says in one line just what I feel about this waiting:
Fool,
All lies in a passion of patience, my lord's rule."

   "What's that from?" asked Jane.

   "Taliessin through Logres.”

Jill Pole: from Lost Girl to Lodestar

The Silver Chair, ch. 1:

"It's an extraordinary thing about girls that they never know the points of the compass," said Eustace.
"You don't know either," said Jill indignantly.
"Yes I do, if only you didn't keep on interrupting."

The Silver Chair, ch. 2:

Scrubb was quite right in saying that Jill (I don't know about girls in general) didn't think much about the points of the compass.  Otherwise she would have known, when the sun began getting in her eyes, that she was traveling pretty nearly due west.

Apparently "more than a year" later, in The Last Battle, ch. 6:

And after that [...] it was hard to pick up their bearings.  It was Jill who set them right again: she had been an excellent Guide in England.  And of course she knew her Narnian stars perfectly, having traveled so much in the wild Northern Lands, and could work out the direction from other stars even when the Spear-Head was hidden.  As soon as Tirian saw that she was the best pathfinder of the three of them he put her in front.

Two Gems

I.  POW Education in WWII

The preface to Oronzo Cilli's Tolkien's Library: An Annotated Checklist introduces one very special secondary source of information about books Tolkien owned or read in his lifetime:

"Germany and Britain agreed in 1941 to allow prisoners of war to sit examinations, and an international inter-library loan system was organised by the Bodleian Library.  Several institutions were involved, including the University of Oxford, which instituted a special Honours Examination in English Literature and Language, granting a certificate or diploma. The 'course has been specially prepared by Professor Tolkien and Mr. C. S. Lewis of Magdalen which would bring a student up to Honours standard if carefully studied.' (British Red Cross Society, 1942).  [...]  In March 1943, Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and Leonard Rice-Oxley were appointed to be examiners of Allied prisoners of war in Germany who had worked on the Board's set syllabus."

Apparently there are 17 reported awards to POWs who sat examinations under the program, as attested by the signatures of Tolkien, Lewis, and Rice-Oxley.  The examination schemes Tolkien and Lewis prepared were published in 1949; they appear to have encompassed B.1 Old English and B.2 Chaucer and his Contemporaries.

II. An Indirect Pre-History of "The Root of the Boot"?

Dr Dimitra Fimi gave a keynote address at Tolkien 2019 about possible vulpine predecessors and analogues of "The Root of the Boot" in song/poetry and folktale ("Tolkien, Folklore, and Foxes: a
thoroughly vulpine talk in which there may be singing!").

It's well-known, I believe, that "The Root of the Boot" is sung to the folk tune ''The Fox Went Out," but Fimi traces the origins of that song back to a Middle English poem (albeit one that was languishing unpublished in the 1920's when Tolkien first started working on his song):

"In 1952, two scholars published their respective editions of a 15th century Middle English poem found in a manuscript in the British Museum, conventionally called 'The Fox and the Goose.' The first scholar was called Rossell Hope Robbins in his 'Secular Lyrics of the XIVth and XVth Centuries'. The second was R. H. Bowers in the Journal of English and Germanic Philology. The poem begins like this: 'Pax uobis,' quod the ffox, 'for I am comyn to toowne.' It fell ageyns the next nyght the fox yede to with all his myghte, with-outen cole or candelight, whan that he cam vnto the toowne."

After a sing-along, Fimi continues:

"Bowers himself [...] pointed straightaway to the similarities between the Middle English poem with 'The Fox Went Out', while in 1961, George Perkins wrote the definitive article that proved that the Middle English poem is indeed the ancestor of this folk song. [...] The poem is written in the dialect of East Midlands, with perhaps some northern influences. The manuscript is dated within 25 years either way of 1500, although probably it's existed long before that. As Robbins notes, it would have been a very popular song, as it is one of the songs quote which would be sung at popular gatherings in the hall, in the inn or on the green or on the road unquote. It's clearly incomplete, as you see it's missing its beginning there, its opening, and it contains a number of irregularities [...] and therefore it seems to have been remembered, with some omissions, from oral tradition. It could well be a hundred years older than the manuscript, it could be older than that yet." 

(Source note: Transcribed from https://youtu.be/rAAYOnkVnwk?t=699; the second segment, following the sing-along, starts at t=780.  The Bowers edition of the poem -- a scant two pages -- is available on JSTOR.)

We know from Tolkien's Library: An Annotated Checklist that Tolkien mentioned a 1959 work by Robbins, Historical Poems of the XIVth and XVth Centuries.  But I don't see any reference to George Perkins or R. H. Bowers.

Mrs. Beaver and the Great Escape

As a kid, and even as a young adult, I reacted to Mrs Beaver's pottering around in the little house on top of the dam much the same way as the children and Mr Beaver do.  I was impatient with her and anxious for them to just leave already!

Now I'm seeing it a little differently.  Mrs Beaver is perfectly clear-headed and practical, and she's thinking several steps ahead of everyone else.

It starts in Chapter 8, when she is the one who points out that what Edmund can tell the White Witch depends on when he slipped away.  This gets them thinking and remembering in useful ways; they realize Edmund did hear about Aslan's return before he left.  And they can't be sure if he heard about the plan to meet him at the Stone Table.

Mr Beaver immediately assumes the White Witch will go directly to the Stone Table and they will be cut off from Aslan.  Mrs Beaver more shrewdly reckons on her knowledge of the White Witch's character and predilections:

"The moment that Edmund tells her that we're all here she'll set out to catch us this very night, and if he's been gone about half an hour, she'll be here in about another twenty minutes."

She's right, of course, and Mr Beaver acknowledges it without hesitation.  Indeed, he urges everyone "we must all get away from here. There's not a moment to lose."

At that, everyone except Mrs Beaver begins bundling themselves into coats (ch. 10).  I won't say they're panicking, but they are certainly not stopping to plan or even consider anything beyond getting out of the house and heading to the Stone Table.  But Mrs Beaver, cool as a cucumber, starts packing five sacks with food and supplies.  She has thought several steps ahead of her companions, and has an answer for everything:

• They aren't in imminent danger, because the White Witch "can't be here for quarter of an hour at least."
• They don't need a big head start, because "we can't get [to the Stone Table] before her whatever we do, for she'll be on a sledge and we'll be walking."
• But it's not hopeless to get through even though the White Witch will get there first, because "we can keep under cover and go by ways she won't expect."

She even takes the time to proportion the five loads to the members of the party, saving the smallest one for Lucy as the smallest of the group.

And what about the sewing machine, which is probably the lightning rod for her seeming sentimentality and impracticality?  Mrs Beaver does not, in fact, actually attempt to bring it, but only mentions it wistfully after her packing is complete and the loads are distributed:  "I suppose the sewing machine's too heavy to bring?"  Her desire not to leave it behind is, of course, largely sentimental (she doesn't want the witch "fiddling with it, and breaking it or stealing it, as likely as not"), but both the phrasing and the timing of the question flag it as strictly rhetorical, and the brief exchange with Mr Beaver on the subject does not appreciably delay their departure. 

The narrator does mask her wisdom a little at the end, apparently adopting the children's impatient perspective with a twice-repeated "at last" sandwiching the sewing machine interlude (it's prefaced by "'Well, I'm nearly ready now,' answered Mrs Beaver at last, allowing her husband to help her into her snow-boots." and followed by the children begging her to hurry "And so at last they all got outside...").  But we shouldn't let that distract us from the underlying reality: Mrs Beaver was right.  They absolutely had the time to bring food with them for the journey.  And I would note that Mr Beaver, for all his own impatience, likewise takes the time to stop and lock the door before they actually set off.

* * * 

Coda: It occurs to me now that there is something special about Mrs Beaver's post-packing sewing machine comments.  The children have been impatient all along, and were quite wrong about it.  But when Mrs Beaver expresses her regrets at leaving the sewing machine behind, I think that is also symbolic -- or perhaps more precisely, an instance of synecdoche.  Her sphere is largely a domestic one, and she is leaving her hearth and home behind with no assurance that it will be there safe and sound for her return.  To the contrary, it will surely be violated by the White Witch.

And from that perspective, Mr Beaver's locking the door -- ineffective as he knows it will be even to slow down the White Witch -- is perhaps also a symbolic gesture of acknowledgment, sympathy, and support.

A Few White Horses in Middle-earth...

A discussion on twitter about Gandalf's shenanigans at the Ford of Bruinen got me a little curious about where (else) we see white horses in Middle-earth. Here is the result of my admittedly cursory investigation.

In The Silmarillion, Oromë rides his white horse Nahar (which is shod with gold and shines like silver in the shadows).

White horses appear in the riddle game in The Hobbit -- the "Thirty white horses on a red hill" are teeth.

Passing lightly over what Bilbo's ostler may or may not have said to his tipsy cat, in The Lord of the Rings, white horses are closely associated with Rohan - for example, those entering Théoden's hall see a tapestry of Eorl the Young on a white horse; Rohan's banner is a white horse on a field of green; the king's mount Snowmane is (predictably) a "great white horse"; and after Théoden's death, the Riders of the King's House ride around his barrow on white horses singing.

And of course Gandalf shows off a bit at the Bruinen flood by conjuring up water in the form of "white riders upon white horses." Presumably this is partly for psychological effect, to counteract the Black Riders on black horses. It's also rather a fitting image, since Frodo has been "persuaded to mount Glorfindel's white horse" Asfaloth for the race to the ford.

But on twitter, @STORI3D_PAST and @alas_not_me look into this instance a bit further:

:

Foreshadowing in LWW?

I just noticed that Edmund humiliates and mocks a defenseless stone lion when he arrives at the White Witch's courtyard in chapter 9 -- although only once he realizes he is safe, of course:

And he stood there gloating over the stone lion, and presently he did something very silly and childish.  He took a stump of lead pencil out of his pocket and scribbled a mustache on the lion's upper lip and then a pair of spectacles on its eyes.  Then he said, 'Yah! Silly old Aslan! How do you like being a stone? You thought yourself mighty fine, didn't you?'  

This perhaps foreshadows, or establishes a pattern for, the greater humiliation and mockery unleashed by the White Witch and her minions in chapter 14, once they realize the mighty, much-feared Aslan is genuinely at their mercy.

In both cases, their fear, once assuaged, seems to goad them into acts of desecration; as if they could avenge themselves for their own timorousness on the object of their fear.

And in both cases, the humiliations or desecrations do not necessarily achieve what is hoped; certainly, despite Edmund's scribbles, "the face of the great stone beast still looked so terrible, and sad, and noble, staring up in the moonlight, that Edmund didn't really get any fun out of jeering at it."

The Magician's Nephew: Who Displays Sexist Attitudes, and Why?

Just a few quick notes on The Magician's Nephew around the halfway point, since I think Lewis is very deliberately bringing in sexist attitudes into the story.

1. It is Uncle Andrew who first articulates such attitudes in order to pooh-pooh Digory's (somewhat Chestertonian) idea that if magic is real, the old fairy tales must be too - and thus the wicked old magician Uncle Andrew will get his comeuppance.

Uncle Andrew initially quails, but then dismisses fairy-tale justice as "a natural thing for a child to think--brought up among women, as you have been. Old wives' tales, eh?"

In other words, to allay his own fears, he must attack Digory as a mere child, and more specifically as a child subject to the particularly foolish/credulous influence of women, and he must attack the idea of fairy-tale justice as "old wives' tales." Because of course, old wives are not worth listening to; they cannot possibly pass down useful bits of folk-wisdom for the ages.

2. Next up is Digory.  We have already seen that Polly "was quite as brave as he about some dangers (wasps, for instance) but she was not so interested in finding out things nobody had ever heard of before."  So it is established that her reluctance generally reflects different values rather than lack of courage; that is, for both of them, the uncertainty and danger of exploring is weighed against the reward, which she typically values less than Digory.  When they come to something on Charn that interests her more than it interests Digory, she takes the lead.

Now, when Polly rightly tries to discourage Digory from striking a bell in the midst of the hall of statues (after he himself has advised that they must be very quiet to avoid triggering collapse of the ruined walls!), Digory immediately resorts to sexism:

"That's all you know," said Digory.  "It's because you're a girl.  Girls never want to know anything but gossip and rot about people getting engaged." 

"You looked exactly like your Uncle when you said that," said Polly.

3. The third instance involves two would-be sources of law and order in the London of Polly and Digory's time, once Jadis starts rampaging there.  A policeman asks Uncle Andrew "Are you in charge of that there young woman?" and a Cabby speaks kindly but patronizingly to Jadis: "Now, missie, let me get at [the horse's] 'had, and just you get off.  You're a Lidy, and you don't want all these roughs going for you, do you? You want to go 'ome and 'ave a nice cup of tea and a lay down quiet like; then you'll feel ever so much better."

Here, the assumptions of the policeman and the Cabby are laughably off-base; the reader already knows Jadis is strong, ambitious, and utterly ruthless -- far beyond Uncle Andrew's control or the calming influence of tea and a lie-down.

~ ~ ~

So, Uncle Andrew wields sexism against Digory and the idea of justice; Digory wields it against Polly and common prudence.

The policeman imagines Jadis must be in someone's charge (and that someone must be a man, no matter how weak and ineffectual); the Cabby imagines Jadis must be overwrought because she does not conform to the cultural expectation of ladylike behavior.

In none of these does Lewis invite the reader to sympathize with narrow, gender-based expectations or criticisms.

Quick Tangent Follow-Up: Wasting All Her School Time

In The Last Battle (ch. 12), Polly Plummer says Susan Pevensie “wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now.”   In my previous post, I suggested "There is perhaps a subtle implication that this longing may have caused her to neglect her studies and not get as much out of her 'school time' as she might."

This reading is actually supported by a passage in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (ch. 1):

Grown-ups thought [Susan] the pretty one of the family and she was no good at school work (though otherwise very old for her age) and Mother said she 'would get far more out of a trip to America than the youngsters.'

Of course, we do know from Prince Caspian (ch. 3) that Susan won swimming prizes at school, so there's that.

* * *

Coda - Approximate dates of composition and publication (courtesy of Joel Heck's chronology):

• Prince Caspian - finished by Dec 1949 and given to RGL to read, with comments back on Dec 31; in typescript by end of Feb 1950.  Published Oct 1951.
• The Voyage of the Dawn Treader - ready for RGL to read by end of Feb 1950.  Published Sept 1952.
• The Last Battle - Lewis is "attempting to complete" it in Dec 1952; finished by Mar 1953.  Published Mar 1956.

Susan Pevensie

I was recently re-reading That Hideous Strength, and came across several passages that further underscore and buttress my views on Lewis's treatment of Susan Pevensie (spoiler alert: she's not necessarily damned, and Lewis doesn't necessarily object to adult female sexuality).

Surprisingly, it seems that I've not previously published a post on Susan, and more specifically the passage in The Last Battle on which so many people hang their own issues with Lewis:

“Sir,” said Tirian, when he had greeted all these.  “If I have read the chronicles aright, there should be another.  Has not your Majesty two sisters?  Where is Queen Susan?” 

“My sister Susan,” answered Peter shortly and gravely, “is no longer a friend of Narnia.” 

“Yes,” said Eustace, “and whenever you’ve tried to get her to come and talk about Narnia or do anything about Narnia, she says ‘What wonderful memories you have!  Fancy your still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children.'” 

“Oh Susan!” said Jill, “she’s interested in nothing now-a-days except nylons and lipstick and invitations.  She always was a jolly sight too keen on being grown-up.” 

“Grown-up, indeed,” said the Lady Polly.  “I wish she would grow up.  She wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, and she’ll waste all the rest of her life trying to stay that age.  Her whole idea is to race on to the silliest time of one’s life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can.” 

So a few thoughts here.

First, these are the thoughts and reflections of other human characters -- neither Aslan himself nor an omniscient narrator.  They can be taken with a grain of salt, as they are filtered through the characters' ordinary human knowledge and perceptions.  I would also note that the three who share their opinions are not Susan's siblings, who presumably know her best, since they have known her the longest and actually traveled to Narnia with her.*

Second, we are not told Susan's fate -- not by the narrator, not by Aslan, not even guessingly by her siblings and friends or anyone else.  As far as we know, she is still alive when Lewis draws the Chronicles of Narnia to an end.  We have no reason to assume she is damned.  Indeed, Lewis's other works suggest that we cannot possibly know if someone who is still alive is or will be damned.

For example, in parts IV-VI of chapter 16 of That Hideous Strength, we see the final moments of Wither, Feverstone, and Frost, each of whom are damned.  Yet Lewis makes clear this is a moral choice, even though it may seem inexorable at the moment of choosing.  Thus, in chapter 16, part IV:

[Wither] had willed with his whole heart that there should be no reality and no truth, and now even the imminence of his own ruin could not wake him. The last scene of Dr. Faustus where the man raves and implores on the edge of Hell is, perhaps, stage fire. The last moments before damnation are not often so dramatic. Often the man knows with perfect clarity that some still possible action of his own will could yet save him. But he cannot make this knowledge real to himself. Some tiny habitual sensuality, some resentment too trivial to waste on a blue-bottle, the indulgence of some fatal lethargy, seems to him at that moment more important than the choice between total joy and total destruction. With eyes wide open, seeing that the endless terror is just about to begin and yet (for the moment) unable to feel terrified, he watches passively, not moving a finger for his own rescue, while the last links with joy and reason are severed, and drowsily sees the trap close upon his soul. So full of sleep are they at the time when they leave the right way.

And then in part VI, Frost (who has deliberately rejected free will and all of reality as an illusion) finds himself going to a garage and locking himself in irrevocably with "all the inflammables he could think of."  His bodily fate is sealed, but even now, at the bitterest of ends, he is given awareness of moral choice and a chance of salvation:

That tiresome illusion, his consciousness, was screaming in protest: his body, even had he wished, had no power to attend to those screams. Like the clockwork figure he had chosen to be, his stiff body, now terribly cold, walked back into the Objective Room, poured out the petrol and threw a lighted match into the pile. Not till then did his controllers allow him to suspect that death itself might not after all cure the illusion of being a soul--nay, might prove the entry into a world where that illusion raged infinite and unchecked. Escape for the soul, if not for the body, was offered him. He became able to know (and simultaneously refused the knowledge) that he had been wrong from the beginning, that souls and personal responsibility existed. He half saw: he wholly hated. The physical torture of the burning was hardly fiercer than his hatred of that. With one supreme effort he flung himself back into his illusion. In that attitude eternity overtook him as sunrise in old tales overtakes trolls and turns them into unchangeable stone.

Nor is this an anomaly in Lewis's writings; we see him explore similar ideas in The Great Divorce.

Third, the core concern about Susan's non-friendship with Narnia, as explained by Eustace, is clearly her dismissal and outright denial of something she knows, from personal experience, to be factually true.  Although she has been there many times, she now pretends it was just "funny games" and quite literally child's play.  She even claims -- by praising the others' "wonderful memories" -- to barely remember it.  All this, even though she has personally spoken with Aslan and received counsel from him, has personally seen Aslan voluntarily suffer humiliation, torture, and death to save her treacherous brother Edmund, and has rejoiced and romped with him in his glorious resurrection and triumph over forces of evil.

Now we can see that the comments of Jill and Polly, which follow, explain their view of why Susan has turned away from Narnia.

People often take Jill's reference to "nylons and lipstick" (in conjunction with the reference to Susan being "too keen on being grown-up") as code for adult female sexuality; a form of metonymy, if you will.  Such readers or critics apparently assume that being grown-up and a sexual female results in Susan being cast out of Narnia.**  Of course, as we have already seen, Susan has chosen -- at this time -- to turn away from Narnia, but we do not know her ultimate fate.

(a) Is Sex Bad?

But we might still ask: does Lewis have a problem with sex and/or sexually active females?  Here, I think it's helpful to notice how sexuality takes center stage in That Hideous Strength.  Among the good guys, in chapter 14, part II, Jane Studdock and Margaret Dimble prepare the marital bed for two spouses who will soon be reunited, and we see the scene from Jane's modern, non-Christian*** perspective:

In Mrs. Dimble's hands the task of airing the little house and making the bed for Ivy Maggs and her jail-bird husband became something between a game and a ritual. It woke in Jane vague memories of helping at Christmas or Easter decorations in church when she had been a small child. But it also suggested to her literary memory all sorts of things out of sixteenth-century epithalamions--age-old superstitions, jokes, and sentimentalities about bridal beds and marriage bowers, with omens at the threshold and fairies upon the hearth. It was an atmosphere extraordinarily alien to that in which she had grown up. A few weeks ago she would have disliked it. Was there not something absurd about that stiff, twinkling archaic world--the mixture of prudery and sensuality, the stylised ardours of the groom and the conventional bashfulness of the bride, the religious sanction, the permitted salacities of fescennine song, and the suggestion that everyone except the principals might be expected to be rather tipsy? How had the human race ever come to imprison in such a ceremony the most unceremonious thing in the world? But she was no longer sure of her reaction. What she was sure of was the dividing line that included Mother Dimble in that world and left her outside. Mother Dimble, for all her nineteenth-century propriety, or perhaps because of it, struck her this afternoon as being herself an archaic person. At every moment she seemed to join hands with some solemn yet roguish company of busy old women who had been tucking young lovers into beds since the world began with an incongruous mixture of nods and winks and blessings and tears--quite impossible old women in ruffs or wimples who would be making Shakespearean jokes about codpieces and cuckoldry at one moment and kneeling devoutly at altars the next. It was very odd: for, of course, as far as their conversation was concerned the difference between them was reversed. Jane, in a literary argument, could have talked about codpieces with great sang-froid, while Mother Dimble was an Edwardian lady who would simply have ignored such a subject out of existence if any modernised booby had been so unfortunate as to raise it in her presence. 

In Chapter 16, part VI, the humans comment as bears, jackdaws, horses, and other animals start to pair off.  It is the agnostic bachelor MacPhee -- rather than the married Christian Mrs. Dimble or the bachelor Christian Ransom -- who is least comfortable with the increasingly inescapable signs of the animals' mating urges:

"Another love affair," said Mrs. Dimble. "It sounds as if Jack had found a Jill. . . . What a delicious night!" [...] "This," said MacPhee with great emphasis, "is becoming indecent!" 

"On the contrary," said Ransom, "decent, in the old sense, decens, fitting, is just what she is.  Venus herself is over St. Anne's."

Indeed, Ransom soon blesses not only the new ursine mates, but also the humans, as Ivy Maggs is finally reunited with her husband:

"[...] Now, Ivy, you want to go and talk to Tom.  Mother Dimble has put you both in the little room half-way up the stairs, not in the lodge, after all." 

"Oh, sir," said Ivy, and stopped. The Director leaned forward and laid his hand on her head. "Of course you want to go," he said. "Why, he's hardly had time to see you in your new dress yet. Have you no kisses to give him?" he said, and kissed her. "Then give him mine, which are not mine but by derivation. Don't cry. You are a good woman. Go and heal this man. Urendi Maleldil--we shall meet again."

So Ransom strongly hints here that the healing Ivy will offer Tom is both sexual in nature -- he will admire her new dress and receive kisses from her -- and most emphatically good.

Soon, there is a tremendous tumult outside -- "an ear-splitting noise from beyond the window" -- as a pair of elephants begin their courtship.  Again, it is MacPhee who is uncomfortable with this and wishes to draw the curtains as "there are ladies present."  Grace Ironwood sharply contradicts him:

"No," said Grace Ironwood in a voice as strong as his, "there will be nothing unfit for anyone to see. Draw them wider.[...]"

Likewise, birds, bats, mice, and hedgehogs are all apparently driven to copulate, and Ransom implicitly blesses them.  As his time on earth is waning, Jane asks if she may stay with him "to the very end." He instead gently tells her she should not stay because she is being "waited for":

"Me, sir?"
"Yes. Your husband is waiting for you in the lodge. It was your own marriage chamber that you prepared. Should you not go to him?"
"Must I go now?"
"If you leave the decision with me, it is now that I would send you."
"Then I will go, sir. But--but--am I a bear or a hedgehog?"
"More. But not less. Go in obedience and you will find love. You will have no more dreams. Have children instead. Urendi Maleldil."

Indeed, That Hideous Strength ends with Jane and Mark about to reunite, and with the hint that things will be very different between them -- that they, too, will find the eros and love that has formerly somehow eluded them.

There is nothing here to suggest a view that sex is bad, unwholesome, or in any way associated with evil.  Indeed, it is one of the evil-aligned characters, Professor Filostrato, who speaks against sex, and explains his opposition (ch. 8, part III):

"What are you driving at, Professor?" said Gould. "After all we are organisms ourselves." 

"I grant it. That is the point. In us organic life has produced Mind. It has done its work. [...]  We must get rid of it. By little and little, of course; slowly we learn how. [...] Learn how to reproduce ourselves without copulation." 

"I don't think that would be much fun," said Winter. 

"My friend, you have already separated the Fun, as you call it, from the fertility. The Fun itself begins to pass away. Bah! I know that is not what you think. But look at your English women. Six out of ten are frigid are they not? You see? Nature herself begins to throw away the anachronism. When she has quite thrown it away, then real civilisation becomes possible. You would understand if you were peasants. Who would try to work with stallions and bulls? No, no; we want geldings and oxen. There will never be peace and order and discipline so long as there is sex. When man has thrown it away, then he will become finally governable."

So there is something about the sexual impulse which, in the bad guys' view, makes humans "ungovernable," resistant to outside control or domination.

Again, I think these views toward sex are consistent with what we see in The Great Divorce.  I'm thinking in particular of the episode involving the tormenting "little red lizard" of lust which is – with the Ghost's very reluctant and agonized permission – killed, and immediately resurrected into "the greatest stallion I have ever seen, silvery white but with mane and tail of gold."  MacDonald, as teacher and guide, characterizes this stallion as the "richness and energy of desire."


(b) What Might "Nylons and Lipstick" Refer To, Then, if Not Female Sexuality?

Initially, we should notice the phrase is "nylons and lipstick and invitations" -- not just nylons and lipstick.  The word "invitations" here suggests an interest in being invited to parties where people get dressed up, or at least social events of some kind where one can see and be seen.

Next, we should notice that Jill claims Susan is "interested in nothing now-a-days except" those three things.  The problem, then is not necessarily having an interest in those things, but being exclusively interested in those things, at the expense of everything else -- especially the things that matter most.  We might also suspect that Jill is exaggerating somewhat; for example, presumably Susan has at least a sufficient interest in eating to keep herself alive.  That is, she is really pointing to Susan's over-prioritizing these things; it's question of mistaken priorities.

Is Jill's diagnosis that Susan "always was a jolly sight too keen on being grown-up" correct?  That is, are we to accept that "nylons and lipstick and invitations" necessarily stand for "being grown-up"?

Well, no -- not according to Polly, who stresses Susan's immaturity:

“Grown-up, indeed,” said the Lady Polly.  “I wish she would grow up.  She wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, and she’ll waste all the rest of her life trying to stay that age.  Her whole idea is to race on to the silliest time of one’s life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can.” 

What is Polly getting at here?  She claims Susan "wasted" her childhood wanting to be a young adult, and thus raced on to the "silliest time of one's life."  (There is perhaps a subtle implication that this longing may have caused her to neglect her studies and not get as much out of her "school time" as she might.)  What is the nature of such adult silliness?  Well, for a male-specific version, we might turn to The Magician's Nephew (ch. 6):

Children have one kind of silliness, as you know, and grown-ups have another kind.  At this moment Uncle Andrew was beginning to be silly in a very grown-up way.  [...] "Andrew, my boy," he said to himself as he looked in the glass, "you're a devilish well-preserved fellow for your age. A distinguished-looking man, sir." [¶] You see, the foolish old man was actually beginning to imagine the Witch would fall in love with him.  The two drinks probably had something to do with it, and so had his best clothes.  But he was, in any case, as vain as a peacock; that was why he had become a Magician.

So here, grown-up silliness seems to involve vanity -- a preoccupation with one's physical appearance and attractiveness, and a desire to be admired for these superficial qualities.

All in all, it appears to me that the phase Susan is in, the one that Polly considers "the silliest time of one's life," is young adulthood.  I would agree that this phase is characterized by a preoccupation with superficial matters such as one's physical appearance (here, nylons and lipstick) and popularity (here, invitations).  And it is not at all unusual for immature young men and women to strive desperately to appear "grown-up" -- perhaps taking up smoking or drinking or other "adult" activities, which mature adults might enjoy in moderation or even do without, since they know their status as grown-ups does not depend on such things.

Would this work for a male character?  I say yes.  Men too, especially in young adulthood, may be preoccupied with superficial matters such as their physical appearance (perhaps symbolized by pomade and cummerbunds, or close-fitting jeans, or over-attention to curating their facial hair) and popularity (whether invitations, or getting to various "bases" with the ladies).  And if they race to that stage and seek to linger there, rather than maturing, I think they should likewise be held up for scorn at their silliness.

But again, I don't think we have to credit Polly's prediction that Susan will "waste all the rest of her life trying to stay that age."  Who knows what Susan will do and what she will choose, over time?  Indeed, the death of her siblings in a train wreck might be quite sobering in and of itself.  But even without that, she might well outgrow her focus on transitory and superficial things -- life has a way of doing that, as one learns to balance the siren call of pleasure with the practical necessities of paying bills.  Or perhaps she will -- like many men and women in real life -- find deeper meaning in love, a career, children, or intellectual pursuits.

In sum, Susan Pevensie's story is not written, and we will never know what would have happened.  It is deliberately left open, like the fate of the Entwives, and I think that those who condemn Lewis for this are not seeing what he wrote, but are instead bringing their own prejudices to bear.



====FOOTNOTES=====
*  Then again, Jill and Eustace have actually met Tirian before and had adventures with him over the course of the book.  So perhaps it's not surprising they'd speak up.

** Of course, in one sense, everyone is cast out of Narnia in The Last Battle, since Narnia itself comes to an end.  But heaven contains all worlds as they should have been, including Narnia.  Or, to be more precise, the Narnia they have known "was not the real Narnia.  That had a beginning and an end.  It was only a shadow or a copy of the real Narnia which has always been here and always will be here: just as our own world, England and all, is only a shadow or copy of something in Aslan's real world." (ch. 15, Digory speaking)

*** In That Hideous Strength, ch. 15, part IV, we learn "Jane had abandoned Christianity in early childhood, along with her belief in fairies and Santa Claus."

Narnia: What Would Have Happened?

Twice, when Lucy messes up, she wants to know what would have happened had she done the right thing -- and Aslan declines to tell her.  But when Digory very reluctantly does the right thing, Aslan consoles him (in a sense) by telling him what would have happened had he done the wrong thing.

As I have summarized it here, we can see a certain philosophical approach that might reconcile Aslan's decision to tell, or not tell, the foreclosed alternative future.  And ordinarily I'd say Aslan's approach need not be consistent -- for example, it could simply vary depending on the circumstances and his relationship with the person he's talking to.

But unfortunately, Lewis complicates the matter by having Aslan tell Lucy -- twice -- that people are never told what would have happened.  Aslan announces this as a categorical rule in Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, but three years later, Lewis does not in any way acknowledge this prior statement or even attempt to carve out an exception as Aslan breaks this "rule" for Digory in The Magician's Nephew.

"Oh, Aslan," said Lucy.  "You don't mean it was [my fault]?  How could I--I couldn't have left the others and come up to you alone, how could I?  Don't look at me like that ... oh well, I suppose I could.  Yes, and it wouldn't have been alone, I know, not if I was with you.  But what would have been the good?"

Aslan said nothing. 

"You mean," said Lucy rather faintly, "that it would have turned out all right--somehow?  But how?  Please, Aslan!  Am I not to know?" 

"To know what would have happened, child?" said Aslan.  "No.  Nobody is ever told that."

 (Prince Caspian, ch. 10 [published 1951])

"Spying on people by magic is the same as spying on them in any other way.  And you have misjudged your friend.  She is weak, but she loves you.  She was afraid of the older girl and said what she does not mean." 

"I don't think I'd ever be able to forget what I heard her say."

"No, you won't." 

"Oh dear," said Lucy.  "Have I spoiled everything?  Do you mean we would have gone on being friends if it hadn't been for this--and been really great friends--all our lives perhaps--and now we never shall." 

"Child," said Aslan, "did I not explain to you once before that no one is ever told what would have happened?" 

(The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, ch. 11 [published 1952])

"I--I nearly ate one [of those apples] myself, Aslan," said Digory.  "Would I--" 

"You would, child," said Aslan.  "For the fruit always works--it must work-- but it does not work happily for any who pluck it at their own will. [...] And the Witch tempted you to do another thing, my son, did she not?" 

"Yes, Aslan.  She wanted me to take an apple home to Mother." 

"Understand, then, that it would have healed her; but not to your joy or hers.  The day would have come when both you and  she would have looked back and said it would have been better to die in that illness."  [...]  But now Aslan was speaking again, almost in a whisper: 

"That is what would have happened, child, with a stolen apple.  It is not what will happen now.  What I give you now will bring joy.  It will not, in your world, give endless life, but it will heal.  Go.  Pluck her an apple."  

(The Magician's Nephew, ch. 14 [published 1955])

I suppose we could invent a silent condition to the "rule" -- perhaps Aslan meant, "no one is ever told what would have happened, if they have the temerity to ask about it" or "no one is ever told what would have happened, if they had done the right thing."

But I suspect this is more of an indication that Lewis was going with what made sense in the moment for the story and characters and whatever points he wished to make... rather than worrying about developing or maintaining "the inner consistency of reality" which so preoccupied Tolkien.

Brave Hobbits

Frodo, Hobbit of the Shire

Recently, @alas_not_me noted the unusual distinction given to Frodo when wielding the Phial of Galadriel (as opposed to when wielding the Ring):

Then holding the star aloft and the bright sword advanced, Frodo, hobbit of the Shire, walked steadily down to meet the eyes.  (758)

The moniker seems almost to deflate the heroic moment by calling attention to Frodo's unheroic, no-larger-than-life status:  He is a hobbit, not a hero or warrior, even though he shows similar courage.  In the event, Shelob is temporarily dismayed by the light of the Phial and retreats.  But not for long; she soon returns and overpowers him.

But I found myself wondering if this formula - a seemingly heroic title that almost paradoxically stresses the character's lowly status as a hobbit - was repeated for the other three.  Here's what I found.

Samwise the Hobbit

We first see the words "Samwise the hobbit" after Gollum's near-repentance, when Gollum explains he "was given that name ['Sneak'] by kind Master Samwise, the hobbit that knows so much" (753).  This formality is clearly a bit of sarcasm, designed to put Samwise on the defensive with Frodo, since Gollum knows perfectly well Frodo will disapprove of the name-calling.  Indeed, we might say Gollum grants Sam this title in spite, at the time of Sam's greatest blunder.

But not long after Frodo's heroic moment with the Phial, Sam gets his own.  Crouched in fear, seeing his death in Shelob's eyes, Sam responds to "a thought [that] came to him, as if some remote voice had spoken."  As he grips the Phial and calls on Galadriel, his voice is suddenly and briefly the vessel or conduit for some other will crying in a language he does not know.  The short poem ends,

And with that he staggered to his feet and was Samwise the hobbit, Hamfast's son, again. (766)

At this point, Sam is thrown back on his own linguistic resources and his own courage, but his own rustic words and fierce passion immediately set the Phial ablaze again and he chases Shelob off for good this time (as far as he and Frodo are concerned).  So the title here granted by the narrator emphasizes Sam's normalcy, his hobbitness and his lowly roots, just as he shows his quality and the Phial responds to it.

Sam is one more time referred to as "Samwise Hamfast's son," but it is not a heroic moment.  Rather, it is highlighting that Sam is thrown on his own hobbit resources to figure out his priorities and plan of action:  But [Frodo and Sam] were far beyond aid, and no thought could yet bring any help to Samwise Hamfast's son; he was utterly alone.  (939)  Here, too, the narrator seems to be emphasizing Sam's ordinariness.  He is not a man (or hobbit) set aside for great things; he is not marked as special.  He must instead think for himself and do his best with no guarantees of wisdom or success - and so he does.

Meriadoc the Hobbit

We should perhaps be suspicious that Merry is in for great deeds when he rides off to war in disobedience to Théoden:

Thus it came to pass that when the king set out, before Dernhelm sat Meriadoc the hobbit, and the great grey steed Windfola made little of the burden.... (842)

Yet during the battle itself, including the moment when he pierces the Black Rider's sinew behind his mighty knee, Merry is referred to as "Merry"; and so also in the moment immediately following, when he cries out "Éowyn! Éowyn!" Only in the aftermath of this heroic deed -- as he grieves -- does the narrator again grant him a heroic title:

And there stood Meriadoc the hobbit in the midst of the slain, blinking like an owl in the daylight, for tears blinded him.... (881)

And still Meriadoc the hobbit stood there blinking through tears, and no one spoke to him, indeed none seemed to heed him. (884)

Here, the title seems to lend grandeur to his grief, a sort of heroism in the ordinary.

As with the previous examples, the formula "Meriadoc the hobbit" seems to stress that an individual from a relatively obscure and insignificant people -- one typically "left out of the old lists, and the old stories" (484) --  has somehow got caught up in the epic struggle between good and evil.

Peregrin the Hobbit / Peregrin Paladin's Son 

Alone of the four hobbits, Pippin seems to have no particular heroic moment and thus no similarly elevated nomenclature associated with such a moment.*  Instead, he gets called "Fool of a Took!" with some regularity.



FN* Thus, when Pippin is given titles, the context is quite different.  For example, he refers to himself as "Peregrin son of Paladin of the Shire of the Halflings" in swearing fealty to Gondor (791), and Gandalf and Denethor refer to him as "Peregrin son of Paladin" in connection with this service (792, 794, 863).  And earlier, at Orthanc, with mock-formality, Merry refers to himself as "Meriadoc, son of Saradoc" and Pippin as "Peregrin, son of Paladin, of the House of Took" (581).

Giles in "Helpless"

In an article lauding Rupert Giles in Buffy the Vampire Slayer as an example of non-toxic masculinity, the author notes -- essentially in passing -- that Giles at one point "drugs [Buffy] to rob her of her power at the behest of their governing body, to test her resilience and resourcefulness. They [Buffy and Giles] weather these trials and grow stronger."

This is a reference to the episode "Helpless" (3.12), in which Buffy comes face to face with a truly shocking abuse of trust by Giles. It doesn't help that he has betrayed her trust only at the instruction of the council of watchers, his employer and supposed "governing body."

I think what moves Giles into non-toxic territory, in "Helpless", is his reaction when he realizes the enormity of what he's done:

• He realizes he has done wrong, and is filled with shame. 
• He admits his mistake and tells Buffy everything. 
• He apologizes -- and more importantly seeks to make things right: "You have to listen to me. Because I have told you this, the test is invalidated. You'll be safe, I promise. Whatever I have to do, to deal with Kralik and to win back your trust-" 
• He follows through on this promise.  He stands up to Travers and the council, taking Buffy's side, entering the field of danger and disobeying orders to help her.  (She still dispatches Kralik, of course, but a secondary baddie takes her by surprise and Giles manages to dust him while Buffy looks around for a weapon.) 
• And so Giles makes things right with Buffy at some personal cost, since he is fired for it.

Surely this is non-toxic masculinity. He's an authority figure for her, an unambiguous father-figure.  But when he messes up big-time, he is frank and contrite and sets aside his own safety and security to put things right.  There's no "father knows best" mentality here; he owns his mistakes.

Remembered Conversations in LotR

AlasNotMe has made some interesting observations about Frodo's memory of his conversation with Gandalf, noting (esp. at fn 5) that the words remembered are not identical to those originally spoken.

There is actually a similar phenomenon with Merry at the Pelennor Fields, remembering Théoden's words to him.

Théoden had been as gentle as possible in turning down Merry's request to accompany him to battle, saying to him: "This is no journey for such steeds as Stybba, as I have told you.  And in such a battle as we think to make on the fields of Gondor what would you do, Master Meriadoc, swordthain though you be, and greater of heart than of stature?" (803).

When Merry remembers this conversation, he leaves out the gentleness and courtesy and instead focuses on the part that he took most to heart, feeling "bitterly the truth of the old king's words: in such a battle what would you do, Meriadoc?" (837).

As edited, these words are shorn of (1) the respectful titles of "Master" and "swordthain"; (2) the seeming specificity about the kind of battle in which he might not be much use (due to his small stature), kindly leaving open the possibility that in other battles elsewhere he could hold his own; and (3) the acknowledgment that Merry's valiant, odds-defying courage (greatness of heart) is belied only by accident of physical limitations:

in such a battle as we think to make on the fields of Gondor what would you do, Master Meriadoc, swordthain though you be, and greater of heart than of stature?

Riding In to Court

In my post about the Green Knight and the Mouth of Sauron, I hadn't been sure what to make of the fact that the Green Knight rides in to Arthur's feast; it seemed discourteous, even deliberately provocative.

Now I'm reading The Forest of Medieval Romance, by Corinne J. Saunders, who says that the Green Knight "rides into the court, thus imitating the role of king's champion at coronation feasts" (148).

Sifting the Evidence

Very interesting discussion, and a reminder of the need to double-check seemingly common-sense interpretations when considering legal records:

• As to whether those convicted were executed, the answer hinges on the meaning of "Death Recorded" in the Old Bailey records - apparently a term of art. 
• As to whether the underlying charges involved consenting adults, the interviewer appears to have identified some counterexamples among the book's featured examples. 

For my own part, I wonder -- if the prosecutors targeted consenting adults, might we expect to see pairs of prosecutions?  (Not necessarily, I suppose, if one or more previously-consenting partners decided to cooperate with the prosecution; then again, presumably the cooperator[s] would not portray the relationship as purely consensual.  And I suppose if men did not dare and/or desire to enter into long-term exclusive and stable relationships in that era, they would not necessarily be prosecuted in pairs.)

Edited 5/25/2019 to add some further reflections:

I don't know what site(s) the author was using to search the Old Bailey records, but I could not find a definition or explanation of "Death Recorded" anywhere at the Old Bailey Proceedings Online site (https://www.oldbaileyonline.org).  I explored menus and links within the site itself, and also tried site-specific google searches, to no avail.

After running an unrestricted google search for some phrases the interviewer read on-air, however, I eventually found the explanation of the term at the Digital Panopticon site:

The emotional impact of the death sentence and the authority of the law was moreover undermined in the early nineteenth century by the fact that the overwhelming majority of capital convicts were being pardoned, and the death sentence thus turned into a mere formality.  In recognition of this problem, in 1823 a new practice of “death recorded” was introduced, whereby judges could abstain from pronouncing a sentence of death on any capital convict whom they considered to be a fit subject for a pardon. 

The carefully-choreographed theatre of sentencing and its emotional impact might also be undermined by open acts of defiance by the convict or the attending crowd.  It was complained in the eighteenth century that some capital convicts made light of their sentence by comments and gestures. 

The court sometimes decided to postpone or respite a sentence until a later sessions, such as in the case of pregnant female convicts, or for reasons that were unrecorded.  In 1848, judges were empowered to invite the jury to respite sentences in cases where the law was doubtful.  In these instances, the case was passed on to the twelve judges at the newly established Court for Crown Cases Reserved (superceded in 1907 by the Court of Criminal Appeal).

Searching the Digital Panopticon

The Digital Panopticon site offers a different search mechanism from the Old Bailey Proceedings Online site.

For example, it seemingly allows you to search for all males actually executed from, say, 1835-1899; that particular search came up with 5 hits, with executions in 1835 and 1837 only.

(And indeed, for what it's worth, searching for males executed between 1838-1925 on the Digital Panopticon site results in zero hits.  After playing around with searches a bit, it would seem the last recorded execution of a male in their dataset occurred in 1837, and the last recorded execution of a female in their dataset occurred in 1832.)

Relationship Between the Two Sites?

As described on the Old Bailey Proceedings Online home page (https://www.oldbaileyonline.org):

The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, 1674-1913
A fully searchable edition of the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published, containing 197,745 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court. 

As described on the Digital Panopticon home page (http://www.digitalpanopticon.org):

Tracing London Convicts in Britain & Australia, 1780-1925This website allows you to search millions of records from around fifty datasets, relating to the lives of 90,000 convicts from the Old Bailey.

The Digital Panopticon site credits the Old Bailey Proceedings Online site as  "foundational":

The Old Bailey Proceedings are the foundational source for Digital Panopticon. They contain published accounts of the criminal trials which led to the convictions and sentences for the 90,000 convicts whose lives are traceable on this website. Each trial account provides basic details about the offender, offence, verdict and punishment sentence, as well as some verbatim testimonies from those who testified at the trial.
[...]
A full digitised edition of the Proceedings is available from the Old Bailey Proceedings Online. 

But the Digital Panopticon draws from a broader base of records, presumably (or at least potentially) providing a more complete picture of the fate of each defendant:

Trial Records

• Old Bailey Proceedings 1740-1913
• Old Bailey Associated Records 1740-1834
• Newgate Calendars of Prisoners for Trial 1782-1853
• England and Wales Criminal Registers 1791-1892

Post-Trial and Sentencing Records

• Capital Convictions at the Old Bailey 1760-1837
• Home Office Criminal Entry Books 1782-1876
• Judges Reports on Criminals 1784-1827
• Petitions for Pardon 1797-1858

Transportation Records

• Middlesex Convicts Delivered For Transportation 1785-1792
• British Transportation Registers 1787-1867
• Convict Indents (Ship and Arrival Registers) 1788-1868
• Surgeons Notes from Transport Vessels 1817-1857

Colony Records

• New South Wales Convict Indexes 1788-1873
• New South Wales Convict Savings Bank Books 1824-1868
• Van Diemen's Land Founders and Survivors Convicts 1802-1853
• Van Diemen's Land Founders and Survivors Convict Biographies 1812-1853
• Van Diemen's Land Convict Labour Contracts 1848-1857
• Western Australia Character Books and General Registers 1850-1868
• Western Australia Convict Probation Records 1850-1868

Imprisonment Records

• Bridewell House of Correction Prisoners 1740-1795
• Deaths in London Prisons 1760-1869
• Hulks Registers 1801-1879
• Prison Registers 1770-1951
• Middlesex House of Detention Calendars 1836-1889
• Newgate Calendars of Prisoners 1855-1931
• UK Convict Prison Captions and Transfer Papers 1843-1871
• UK Licences for the Parole of Convicts 1853-1925
• Metropolitan Police Register of Habitual Criminals 1881-1925
• Prisoner Photograph Albums 1871-1873

Civil Records

• Records Associated with London Lives 1740-1800
• Census Returns for England and Wales 1841-1911
• FreeBMD Deaths, 1837-1925

Tempest in a Teapot: Easter Worshippers

Seems to me that "Easter worshippers" is shorthand for "people worshipping on Easter Sunday."

In the US, at least, churches are often full to the brim on Easter Sunday with what we might call "cultural Christians" -- folks who do not ordinarily grace the inside of any church and are not necessarily Christians in any theologically meaningful sense on a day-to-day basis (prayer life, devotion to Christ's teachings, etc.).  So from a purely technical point of view, "Easter worshippers" could potentially be more accurate than "Christians" to describe the victims.

In any event the phrase, though inelegant and easily mockable, is clear enough.  It seems odd to complain that these tweets failed to use the word "Christians," when the word "Easter" makes clear that the victims were not culturally or theologically Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, or the like.  Does the word "Christian" have some totemic power that it must be invoked in a tweet expressing sympathy for the victims?

Moreover, the phrase "Easter worshippers" arguably gets to the core of the matter -- these attacks were not just random attacks on Christians on some random Sunday.  They were targeting Christians on the highest of high holy days, the day when it was fully revealed that Jesus was not just another nice guy who finished last, but instead was God himself incarnate, sacrificed and resurrected for us.  And they were targeting Christian churches on a day when anyone with any cultural or theological affinity to Christianity whatsoever would likely be in a church. (Presumably in order to maximize the deaths/injuries.)

"We were worsted"

I associate "worsted" with wool, but Tolkien uses the verb form of worst twice in LotR, in places where I'd have been inclined to say bested or defeated:

• Merry (post-barrow): "The men of Carn Dûm came on us at night, and we were worsted.  Ah! the spear in my heart!"
• Gimli: "With its own weapons was it worsted!"

According to the OED, worst, v. is about two centuries older than best, v., and slightly rarer nowadays.  But they are essentially synonyms; just as flammable and inflammable are synonyms.

So for worst, v., the second meaning is the one in current use:

2. transitive. Cf. best, v. 

a. To get the better of (an adversary) in a fight or battle; to defeat, overcome.
1636—2015

b. To defeat in argument, to outdo or prove better than (a person). Also: to overcome or foil (an undertaking). Frequently in passive.
1646—2012

But for best, v., there is only one meaning:

transitive. To get the better of, to get an advantage over; to outwit. Also: to cheat, defraud; cf. bester n.
1839—2006

I think bested may be more popular with modern Americans, because it focuses on the victor: who was best?  Whereas worsted focuses on the loser: who came out worst?

So compare "With its own weapons was it bested!"  vs "With its own weapons was it worsted" -- Tolkien's version has better alliteration, of course, but it also emphasizes the irony of this particular defeat.

(Curiously enough, as Corey Olsen has noted, cleave and splice are each their own antonym; also sanction, for that matter.)

First-World Problems

Carolyn Hax, responding to a letter-writer’s self-negating comment (“I know there is so much worse stuff going on in the world right now”):

This can be a useful thought exercise for dealing with disappointment, say, but for grief, especially on so many fronts? There’s no “first-world loss,” there’s just loss — unless your Mercedes-Benz has died.

Washington Post online, April 14 at 11:59 PM.

Gleaming Cohorts

This morning, I suddenly thought of the opening lines of Byron's "The Destruction of Sennacherib," as mediated by James Thurber.  They gallop memorably along in anapestic tetrameter:

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;

Thurber reports the complaint of some self-help guru that people just weren't reading these lines properly: "when a suspicious-minded investigator tested them, quite a number turned out to suppose that the Assyrian's cohorts were an article of wearing apparel" (75).

Thurber's rejoinder is a delightful defense of this misreading:

What the second line means is simply that the cohorts' articles of wearing apparel were gleaming in purple and gold, so nothing much is distorted except the number of people who came down like the wolf on the fold.  The readers who got it wrong had, it seems to me, as deep a poetic feeling [...] as those who knew that a cohort was originally one of the ten divisions of a Roman legion and had, to begin with, three hundred soldiers, later five hundred to six hundred.  Furthermore, those who got it wrong had a fine flaring image of one Assyrian coming down valiantly all alone, instead of with a couple of thousand soldiers to help him, the big coward. (75-76, bold emphasis added)

That bit in bold is a contender for Best Literary Criticism Ever, as far as I'm concerned.

But it turns out Terry Pratchett has also played with a similar misreading of "cohorts" in Byron's poem.  For example, in ch. 6 of Going Postal:

A voice behind [Moist] said: ‘The Postman came down like a wolf on the fold / His cohorts all gleaming in azure and gold... ’ 

[...] He turned to Miss Dearheart. 

‘When I was a kid I always thought that a cohort was a piece of armour, Miss Dearheart,’ he said, giving her a smile. ‘I used to imagine the troops sitting up all night, polishing them.’

And in Feet of Clay, there's a reference to "Stronginthearm's Armour Polish for Gleaming Cohorts."

A brief google search confirms that Wodehouse riffs on these lines as well at various times in multiple books, but it doesn't look like his characters necessarily mistake the meaning of "cohorts."  For example, in Bertie Wooster Sees It Through, Bertie at one point complains that Stilton "was once more in the position of an Assyrian fully licensed to come down like a wolf on the fold with his cohorts all gleaming with purple and gold."  (Later, he reflects that Stilton's demeanor "was that of an Assyrian who, having come down like a wolf on the fold, had found in residence not lambs, but wildcats, than which, of course, nothing makes an Assyrian feel sillier.")

(Another Wodehousian twist: "With the nippiness of a lamb in the fold on observing the approaching Assyrians...." - The Code of the Woosters.)

---

I suspect the substitution of "a wolf" for "the wolf" is probably quite common.  But  "a wolf" suggests a mere everyday simile (the Assyrian approaches just like any wolf would), whereas "the wolf" suggests more of an iconic encounter, maybe even the Platonic ideal of wolf-sheep encounters, the Wolf all sheep fear.

----
Thurber, James. “Miscellaneous Mentation.” Let Your Mind Alone! And Other More or Less Inspirational Pieces, 1st Perennial Library ed., Harper & Row, Publishers, 1976, pp. 72–79.

Laconic/Understated Repartee in Macbeth

Here's something that apparently caught my attention in my last read-through of Macbeth back in March 2017.  Yet another reminder that our modern and post-modern authors did not invent irony/deliberate understatement/litotes/snappy comebacks.

From Act 2, Scene 3:

LENNOX:

The night has been unruly: where we lay,
Our chimneys were blown down; and, as they say,
Lamentings heard i' the air; strange screams of death,
And prophesying with accents terrible
Of dire combustion and confused events
New hatch'd to the woeful time: the obscure bird
Clamour'd the livelong night: some say, the earth
Was feverous and did shake.

MACBETH:  'Twas a rough night.


From Act 4, Scene 1:

Second Apparition: Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth!

MACBETH: Had I three ears, I'ld hear thee.


From Act 4, Scene 2:

LADY MACDUFF:  Yes, he is dead; how wilt thou do for a father?

Son:  Nay, how will you do for a husband?

LADY MACDUFF:  Why, I can buy me twenty at any market.

Son:  Then you'll buy 'em to sell again.

Bright Yellow Daffodils, in Black & White

a lovely touch from the beloved

Crocuses in the Lawn

The past few days, I noticed crocuses springing up: yellow ones in the lawn around the library, then purple ones in the local park as I crossed to read on a sun-drenched bench.

And this morning, I tried to find the word that Jonathan Strange uses to address Drawlight in Venice, only a little handicapped by never having seen it in print; in the audiobook, it had sounded like "Croquitur" (and thus sprang to mind with the word "crocus").  It turns out the word is "Leucrocuta," which the Tor.com re-read helpfully glosses with a link to a medieval bestiary:

The leucrota is a swift beast that lives in India. It is a composite animal, the result of a mating between a hyena and a lioness, the same size as an ass, but with a horse's head, chest and legs like a lion, hind quarters like a stag, and cloven hoofs. It has an extremely wide mouth, that stretches from one ear to the other. It does not have individual teeth, but only a single bone where teeth should be. Like the hyena, the leucrota can make sounds that resemble human speech.

No wonder poor, vain Drawlight is so worried about Strange's threat to change him to this form.  

... and stammering

It turns out that "stammer" also comes up 12 times in the kindle edition of LotR, but the distribution is a bit more egalitarian:

• Bilbo 1x
• On being reminded by Gandalf that he'd agreed to give up the Ring (p. 33)
• Frodo 4x
• After hearing the Ring-verse (p. 51)
• As he's struggling against Old Man Willow's spell but getting overpowered by it (p. 117)
• After he spontaneously breaks into song praising Goldberry (p. 124) 
• On realizing how old Elrond is (p. 243)
• Sam 1x
• After reciting the Gil-galad poem (p. 186)
• Gimli 1x 
• On being invited to request a gift from Galadriel (p. 376)
• Pippin 3x
• Initial response to Gandalf about what he saw in the palantir (he's trying to deceive Gandalf with a partial truth) (p. 593)
• Responding to Beregond's question about Aragorn's identity (he realizes he slipped up by mentioning him) (p. 761)
• Attempting to comfort a crying Denethor (p. 823)
• Merry 2x
• On learning he will ride with Theoden (he was worried about his uselessness) (p. 777)
• On learning he will be left behind and is being released from service (uselessness confirmed!) (p. 801)

Blushing in The Lord of the Rings

A quick word search on "blush" in my kindle edition of LotR reveals 12 matches.  Here's who blushes and how often:

• Sam 7x 
• After reciting the Gil-galad poem (p. 186)
• In Rivendell, after taking Frodo's hand and stroking it gently (p. 225)
• After getting himself invited/conscripted into Frodo's quest (p. 271)
• After enduring Galadriel's glance (p. 357)
• Amidst the "praise them with great praise!" accolades to him and Frodo (p. 953) 
• After Bilbo gives him money "if you think of getting married" (p. 987)
• When Frodo praises him in front of Rose (p. 1014)
• Pippin 1x
• In conversation with Beregond, after temporarily forgetting to make sure Shadowfax was taken care of (p. 761)
• Frodo 1x 
• Amidst the "praise them with great praise!" accolades to him and Sam (p. 953)
• willow-trees 1x (p. 507)
• walls of Gondor 1x (p. 751)
• white peaks of the mountains 1x (p. 884)

(The 12th word match is after Sam's blush in Lothlorien, when Pippin asks him "What did you blush for, Sam?")

And There Was Great Rejoicing

Some years ago, I started seeing "Woot!" as the predominant approbatory exclamation on Facebook.  I was never particularly keen on it myself (my contemporaries had been partial to "Yay!"), but in the past year or two, my own practices have evolved.  I've somehow developed the habit of typing "Huzzah!" to greet good news.

Now, "huzzah" struck me as very traditional - even perhaps a little retro - but when I used it in a work email recently, a retired colleague asked me to explain it.  Here's what I came up with on the spur of a not-particularly-awkward moment:

A cry of rejoicing and delight, similar to "Hooray!" or "Yippee!" or "Hallelujah!"
Frequently accompanied by the wholesale tossing of hats into the air, if the jubilant crowd happens to be wearing hats. 

I'm actually rather pleased with that.

But all this rejoicing also reminds me of the First Sally in Stanislaw Lem's The Cyberiad (translated by Michael Kandel):

This high-minded monarch also had a theory, which he put into action, and this was the Theory of Universal Happiness. It is well known, certainly, that one does not laugh because one is amused, but rather, one is amused because one laughs. If then everyone maintains that things just couldn't be better, attitudes immediately improve. The subjects of Ferocitus were thus required, for their own good, to go about shouting how wonderful every-thing was, and the old, indefinite greeting of "Hello" was changed by the King to the more emphatic "Hallelujah!" —though children up to the age of fourteen were permitted to say, "Wow!" or "Whee!", and the old-timers, "Swell!" Ferocitus rejoiced to see his people in such good spirits. Whenever he drove by in his destroyer-shaped carriage, crowds in the street would cheer, and whenever he graciously waved his royal hand, those up front would cry: "Wow!"—"Hallelujah!"—"Terrific!" 

~ ~ ~

So, what should we make of my three real-world contenders?  Their relative ages are just what we would expect.

Merriam-Webster online thinks "woot" or "w00t" has been around since 2002, and speculates for its etymology: "perhaps extension of WHOO entry 1, with t representing glottal closure."

"Yay, int." is much older, as it is apparently attested all the way back to 1963.  The OED online speculates: "Perhaps < yay adv., used as an exclamation, or < yeah adv. used similarly with alteration of ending (compare 'ray aphetic form of hooray int.)."

But in its entry for "huzza, int. and n." the OED has quotations as far back as 1573.  For etymology, it offers: "apparently a mere exclamation, the first syllable being a preparation for, and a means of securing simultaneous utterance of the final /ɑː/."  They go on to say:

It is mentioned by many 17–18th cent. writers as being originally a sailor's cheer or salute: ‘It was derived from the marine and the shouts the seamen make when friends come aboard or go off’ (North Exam. (1740) 617). It may therefore be the same as heisau! hissa! originally hauling or hoisting cries: see heeze v. quot. c1550 and hissa int. (German has also ˈhussa as a cry of hunting and pursuit, and, subsequently, of exultation.)

Two Quick Notes on "The Extended Moment"

I think it was my third visit to the Morgan Library this year (this time for Patricia's birthday) when I finally got around to looking at their exhibit "The Extended Moment: Photographs from the National Gallery of Canada."

The photograph labeled "Moon, 4 March 1865" (by Louis M. Rutherford, American, 1815-1892) has the most wonderful opening line about the photographer: "Rutherford, a practicing New York lawyer, left the bar to devote his career to astronomy."

And I loved this one (Alison Rossiter's Goya), which looks more like traditional East Asian ink wash paintings than a photograph:

The Green Knight vs the Mouth of Sauron

The Mouth of Sauron's encounter with the Captains of the West in The Lord of the Rings has been reminding me of the Green Knight's visit to King Arthur's court in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.  So I wanted to look at the scenes a bit more carefully together.

The initial set-up is quite different, naturally.  The Green Knight comes in uninvited without any introduction or explanation -- the reader is thus in the same boat as members of Arthur's court -- whereas Tolkien gives us some backstory on the Lieutenant of the Tower of Barad-dûr when he comes out in response to the heralds' challenge.  The Green Knight arrives alone on a color-coordinated steed that seems an ordinary animal except for its hue, but the poet hints the knight himself might possibly be supernatural ("Half etayn in erde I hope þat he were").  Intriguingly, the similarly color-coordinated fellow who approaches Aragorn & Co. is almost exactly the inverse, i.e., a living man on a possibly supernatural mount:

[O]ut of [the Black Gate] there came an embassy from the Dark Tower.  At its head there rode a tall and evil shape, mounted upon a black horse, if horse it was; for it was huge and hideous, and its face was [...] more like a skull than a living head, and in the sockets of its eyes and in its nostrils there burned a flame.  The rider was robed all in black, and black was his lofty helm; yet this was no Ringwraith but a living man.
(LotR 888, paragraph break omitted)

The core similarity, of course, is the disrespectful address.  In each version, the stranger boldly rides right up to the company and makes a big show of looking them up and down and asking who is in charge.  He is very specifically pretending not to be able to discern the leader -- a matter which would be self-evident both from the man's own physical location, bearing, and adornment and from his followers' reactions, since they would doubtless be turning to him or looking his way.  Here's Tolkien in LotR:

Now halting a few paces before the Captains of the West he looked them up and down and laughed.  

'Is there anyone in this rout with authority to treat with me?' he asked. 'Or indeed with wit to understand me? Not thou at least!' he mocked, turning to Aragorn with scorn. 'It needs more to make a king than a piece of Elvish glass, or a rabble such as this. Why, any brigand of the hills can show as good a following!'
(LotR 889).

Clearly, the Mouth of Sauron knows who Aragorn is, since he specifically picks him and his Elvish glass out for the first round of mockery.  Here's the Middle English poet's verse (ll. 221-231):

Þis haþel [knight] heldez [proceeds, goes, comes] hym in and þe halle entres,
Driuande [lit: driving] to þe heȝe dece, dut [feared] he no woþe [danger],
Haylsed [greeted] he neuer one, bot heȝe he ouer loked.
Þe fyrst word þat he warp [uttered], 'Wher is', he sayd,
'Þe gouernour of þis gyng [company]? Gladly I wolde
Se þat segg [man, knight] in syȝt, and with hymself speke
raysoun.' 

     To knyȝtez he kest his yȝe,
     And reled [rolled] hym vp and doun;
     He stemmed [stopped, halted], and con [did] studie [look carefully, lit: study]
     Quo walt [possessed] þer most renoun.

The Green Knight's words are less overtly disrespectful here; he does not call into question Arthur's intellectual capabilities, compare him to a "brigand," or refer to his followers as "this rout" or "a rabble." Or does he?  The word "gyng" (l. 225) stands out initially due to its visual resemblance to "gang."  Tolkien's notes and glossary translate it as "company" (1st ed. p. 160) and his own translation uses "gathering" (p. 23).  Likewise, Borroff goes with "crowd" in her verse translation, both in the 1967 original and a revised version for the Norton Critical Edition (2010).

Still, Borroff's commentary on these lines in "The Challenge Episode: A Stylistic Interpretation" cites the OED to suggest the word conveys an ambiguously deprecatory sense.

Indeed, the first several definitions or subdefinitions in OED's entry for "ging, n." (1, 2a, 2b, 3a) are consistent with this neutral usage; it can mean (for example) a company of armed men, a great personage's retinue, household, followers, or retainers, or even more generally a gathering of people.  1, 2a, and 2b are attested at various times from 1043 (in Old English) through 1632, while 3a is attested ?c1200–1877. But then we reach definition 3b:

 b. depreciative. A crew, a rabble.
       c1250—1659

As we have seen, the Mouth of Sauron refers to the host as "this rabble."

Curiously, the Green Knight seems to have come indoors ("heldez hym in and þe halle entres") on horseback.  He does not dismount on entering the feast-area, but instead drives or presses forward to the high dais ("Driuande to þe heȝe dece," rendered by Tolkien as "pressing forward to the dais").    In this regard, the Green Knight seems more overtly disrespectful than the Mouth of Sauron; an emissary summoned forth to answer a challenge might well ride up to the enemy awaiting him, but an unexpected visitor dropping in at Christmas revels "in halle" (l. 101) should surely, at the very least, approach the dais on foot.

The Green Knight's insolence devolves into increasingly open mockery (ll. 280-86, 309-15) and then to loud laughter (l. 316).  Arthur initially identifies himself and graciously invites him to join in the feast and let them know his business after, but the Green Knight declines.  He's not there for a fight, of course, because "Hit arn aboute on þis bench bot berdlez chylder" (l. 280).  Instead, he challenges them to a beheading game.  When his startling offer is met with stunned silence, the Green Knight throws off all restraint (ll. 309-22):

'What, is þis Arthures hous,' quoþ þe haþel þenne,
'Þat al þe rous [fame, talk] rennes of þurȝ ryalmes so mony?
Where is now your sourquydrye [pride] and your conquestes,
Your gryndellayk [fierceness] and your greme [wrath], and your grete wordes?
Now is þe reuel and þe renoun of þe Rounde Table
Ouerwalt wyth a worde of on wyȝes speche,
For al dares for drede withoute dynt schewed!'
Wyth þis he laȝes so loude þat þe lorde greued;
Þe blod schot for scham into his schyre face
and lere;

     He wex as wroth as wynde,
     So did alle þat þer were.
     Þe kyng as kene bi kynde
     Þen stod þat stif mon nere,

So Aragorn, unlike Arthur, passes the test insofar as keeping his cool under open mockery and laughter: "Aragorn said naught in answer, but he took the other's eye and held it, and for a moment they strove thus," until the challenger quails (LotR 889).

The similarities in set-up perhaps reflect that, in each case, the emissary seeks to undermine, to provoke, to throw the good guys off their game, and ultimately to set a trap for them.


~~~~
Coda - Miscellaneous Details

The Green Knight issues his challenge on horseback, since immediately afterward "Þe renk on his rouncé hym ruched in his sadel" to look around at the company (l. 303).  Moreover, once the challenge has been accepted, "Lyȝtly lepez he hym to, and laȝt at his honde" (l. 328).  So he's kinda doubling down on the not-dismounting thing until he gets what he wants.

The scene in LotR does not include a similar challenge/exchange.  The Mouth of Sauron is answering the heralds' challenge: "Come forth! [...] Let the Lord of the Black Land come forth! Justice shall be done upon him. For wrongfully he has made war upon Gondor and wrested its lands.  Therefore the King of Gondor demands that he should atone for his evils, and depart then for ever.  Come forth!" (LotR 887).  But this is a fundamentally different kind of challenge than the Green Knight's proffered exchange of one beheading for another.

The Mouth of Sauron does offers the company an exchange, but it, too, is fundamentally different from that offered by the Green Knight, since the terms are wildly unequal on their face (rather than like for like): He invites total submission and capitulation in return for the non-torture of one hobbit.

~~~~
Note on Etymology:

From the OED's etymological notes on "gang, n.":

Sense 8 probably developed primarily from the conception of a group of people going about together, whereas senses 9 and 10 were probably additionally influenced by sense 7, as denoting a group or set (of people or animals) having characteristics in common. Compare earlier ging n.1 It is uncertain whether there was any influence from early Scandinavian uses in compounds, or whether these simply show a parallel development; compare Old Icelandic þjófa-gangr group of thieves, gaura-gangr group of ruffians, and also drauga-gangr group of ghosts, músa-gangr group of mice. (Dutch gang and German Gang denoting a group of criminals show borrowings < English.)

In turn, the outline for "† ging, n.1" provides:

Origin: Of uncertain origin. Either (i) a variant or alteration of another lexical item. Or (ii) a borrowing from early Scandinavian. Etymon: i-geng n.
Etymology: Either (i) aphetic < i-geng n., or (ii) < early Scandinavian (compare Old Icelandic ...
Obsolete.
 1. A company of armed men, a troop, army, host.
       OE—1632
 2.
 a. A retinue (of a great personage); a household, a body of retainers or followers.
       ?c1200—1601
 b. In plural. A person's followers or people. Also: people in general.
       c1330—c1626
 3.
 a. gen. A gathering of people, a company; a band, a gang; a set. Also figurative.
       ?c1200—1877
 b. depreciative. A crew, a rabble.
       c1250—1659
 c. spec. The crew of a ship or boat. Cf. gang n.
       1585—1670

 4. In Old Testament usage: the Gentile nations collectively; heathen peoples.

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NOTE: The citations are rather rough - I'll have to go back and clean them up at some point.

Works Consulted

Armitage, Simon. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A New Verse Translation. W.W. Norton, 2008.

Borroff, Marie. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A New Verse Translation. W.W. Norton, 1967.

---. “The Challenge Episode: A Stylistic Interpretation.” Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: An Authoritative Translation, Contexts, Criticism, edited by Marie Borroff and Laura L. Howes, 1st ed, W.W. Norton, 2010, pp. 93–104.

---. “The Translated Text of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: An Authoritative Translation, Contexts, Criticism, edited by Marie Borroff and Laura L. Howes, 1st ed, W.W. Norton, 2010, pp. 1–64.

“gang, n.” Oxford English Dictionary Online, Third Edition, Mar. 2013, http://www.oed.com.i.ezproxy.nypl.org/view/Entry/76566.

“ging, n.1” Oxford English Dictionary Online, Third Edition, June 2017, http://www.oed.com.i.ezproxy.nypl.org/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/78368.

"Sir Gawayn and Þe Grene Knyȝt."  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, edited by J. R. R. Tolkien and E. V. Gordon, Clarendon Press, 1949.  (https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Gawain/1:1?rgn=div1;view=fulltext)

---.  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Edited by J.R.R. Tolkien and E.V. Gordon, edited by Norman Davis, Norman, editor, 2nd ed., Clarendon Press, 1968.

Tolkien, J. R. R. The Lord of the Rings. 50th Anniversary One-Volume Edition, HarperCollinsPublishers, 2005.

Tolkien, J. R. R., translator.  “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl and Sir Orfeo, edited by Christopher Tolkien, HarperCollinsPublishers, 1975, pp. 17–93.